Day Break on the Li

Brothers Huang Mingde and Huang Yuechuang, at 83 and 74 respectively, still work the Li River as cormorant fishermen. It's a different kind of fishing these days for the old men - as now they throw their nets at touring photographers.

Cormorant fishing is a dying art. For thousands of years fishermen used trained cormorants to fish the rivers and lakes of China. The fishermen would tie a snare near the base of the bird's throat, which effectively prevented the birds from swallowing larger fish while still allowing them to swallow smaller ones. When a cormorant caught a fish, the fisherman would bring the bird back to the boat and have it spit it up the fish onto the bamboo deck.

There aren't many practicing cormorant fisherman left these days, but a few, such as the Huang brothers, still make a decent living serving the tourism industry by posing for memorable travel shots like this. Huang Yuechuang first began working with photographers back in the 70's!